New FOP Scandal Erupts

Fun times at the General Meeting:

• President John Catanzara informed members that he is finally doing something about the hostile takeover of Forensics by the private company Ron Smith & Associates. The room seemed cautiously optimistic — or at least as optimistic as you can be when you’ve heard a version of that sentence before.

  To his credit, acknowledging the issue out loud is a step in the right direction. Whether that step leads anywhere beyond the microphone is, of course, the part everyone is waiting to see.

  Then things got… interesting.

  After wrapping up what can only be described as a highlight reel of his own accomplishments, EJ stepped up to the mic. She started by thanking him for his “hard work” — which, given what followed, may go down as one of the more polite setups in recent meeting history.

  She then asked a simple question: whether he had charged his trips to Jamaica on the FOP credit card. The reaction said more than the answer.

  John looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He immediately denied it — flat out. EJ followed up by suggesting that if that were true, there should be no issue opening the financials back up to the membership.

  That’s when the story started changing.

  John claimed the financials were never open to members — which raised a few eyebrows, considering he himself reviewed them when Kevin was President. When that was pointed out, he pivoted again, saying members can’t see the credit card statements because, before they were locked down, someone saw a $5,000 steak dinner charge and “blew it out of proportion.”

  EJ’s response was simple: “But you still spent $5,000 on a steak dinner.” John tried to reframe it as a dinner for retirees. EJ didn’t budge: “It’s still a $5,000 steak dinner.”

  At that point, the wheels came off.

  Unable to win that argument, John pivoted hard — this time to attacking EJ personally, bringing up CR numbers related to her social media activity. There are growing concerns that complaints have been encouraged in response to her speaking out. He then suggested the Lodge has spent too much money providing her legal defense for IAD statements. EJ fired back with the obvious question: how much has the Lodge spent defending him over his own posts? Posts that forced him tor retire before he was fired. When she asked if it was in the neighborhood of a million dollars, John said he “didn’t know.”

  Which, at this point, seems to be the most consistent answer of the day.

So once again:

• the FOP credit card seems to be being used improperly;
• legal fees in regard to the president might be approaching a million dollars;
• access to union financials are still being denied to members despite the current president using them to beat the past-president 

The usual sycophants are defending these actions, because if they don't, they'll lose their Field Rep spots like the First VP lost his. 

The Friday update should be interesting.